Looking at the FAQ,
How big are groups in Pantheon?
There will be a limit to group size (currently 6-8 players, but that’s not set in stone) to add a tactical element in terms of group configuration.
Yet surely there is also an intent on having larger scale battles and mobs designed to be fought by more than just 6 to 8 people?
Coming from ffxi, and with basically zero knowledge and experience about everquest, I think the 6 person party and 18 person alliance dynamic was perfect.
Just what sort of larger group numbers are being thought about for this game? Whole scale server sort of things for 100s of people, things designed for a whole guild of like 50-100 people, or things designed for groups of 1 or 2 dozen like the 18 man alliance from ffxi?
I absolutely worshiped the 6 person party dynamic for level grinding and 90% of the quest or missions battles, and then the vast majority of end-game content being geared towards 18 man alliances, or in some things groups of alliances (dynamis).
Two questions down from that should answer your question. We haven't release any more details on this yet but it will come further down the track when we are closer to announcing group details.
http://www.pantheonmmo.com/game/faqs/#q17
Yes, there will be Raid content in Pantheon. That said, the majority of content is being designed for grouping, with the remainder for soloing or raiding.
Some classes should be able to solo to an extent, but yes grouping should be the most efficient way to grind level appropriate monsters. PADPAD2, you sound dissapointed or like you are looking for another alternative to either a full group or raid force - did you have something else in mind?
In case this is news to you or anybody else, I heard ina youtube video summarizing Brad's Reddit AMA (whew) that if mobs feel they are being overpowered by numbers, they will flee and possibly recruit more mobs to match the raid force. A simple group-difficulty mob would not try to fight against a raid, they will respond intelligently somehow. I remember raids in EQ upwards of 100 people, which I assume is not the intent of VR.
I'm all for huge scale battles designed for tons of people, but there is something in the middle that I think is much more important to strive for.
Too many people and your importance is of course greatly diminished. Too few and there isn't very much room for complex party dynamics.
I think fights designed for about 15-25 people is the most interesting sort of range to work in. It's much more open to possibilities than the standard 6 party dynamic, but not so gigantic that individual roles can't all still be extremely important.
It's also about a balance of the feeling of intimacy versus a business dynamic to a particular guild or group of players. Being part of a group of more than 20 or 30 people can greatly alter the dynamic of how members tend to interact, and can just lessen the bonds that might otherwise be forged by having a slightly smaller regular group.
I would like 6 man parties too, but I do also think an 8 man party could be good too. As for larger group content I feel similarly about it not being too big. Big enough for complex group tactics but not so big that you feel like a cog in the machine. I think family, not army.
From the recent pod cast, it seems that they havent finalised the numbers, but it seems that there will be defferent sized raids.
Personally I hope that the group size max is set to 8 which will give a new perspective on group makeup, it would be interesting to see if you could do area "A" with a smaller group too. Im all for make what you have work.
PADPAD2 said:So that's it? Just stuff for 6-8 man groups, and then "raids" with whatever assumed numbers that implies? (30-40 people average or something?)
No, but as I said, "We haven't released any more details on this yet but it will come further down the track when we are closer to announcing group details."
I understand you are new to the forums but a lot of this information has already been discussed or is still awaiting more developer details as this game is still in early development, so you may not get answers to your questions right away but please use the search function prior to posting as you will find over the last few years many of the topics have already been discussed and had answers given or explanations as to why there is no answer just yet.
6 man groups were good, not too big, not too small.
But I also recall many many times, having to leave someone out because we filled the group with the essentials for the content, 8 would allow you to bring along 2 extra for support, and not do the "Sorry we already have a (insert class) in the group."
Fulton said:6 man groups were good, not too big, not too small.
But I also recall many many times, having to leave someone out because we filled the group with the essentials for the content, 8 would allow you to bring along 2 extra for support, and not do the "Sorry we already have a (insert class) in the group."
This is true but with 8, eventually you'll still run into the same problem and most likely a dungeon could be getting wrecked by said grp i could see Tank/Healer/4support/2DPS, just destorying everything with endless heals, ton of CC, and a good amount fo damage being laid out to where some content would feel more like a walk through than anything else, unless of course they gage it to where even with such a grp there is still a really good challenge, but than the grps that don't have that good of a making would probably simply get wrecked due to bad combo comp. I guess we will see, but i would still prefer 6 than 8
It's hard to say on group size, with out knowing how defined the roles are, especially the support side. If it's straight up tank, heal, dps then you would only really need 5. The question is 'to what is the extent is support gonna be in the game. Will we need a class that can pull mobs to the group safely, a class that provide high damage short term buffs, are there gonna be classes that are far superior at CC and debuffs than others. Maybe these roles are just gonna be secondary roles of the tank, dps, or healer. Im hoping for a very diverse skill set for clases so each dps, tank, and healer brings their own unique benefits to a group.
I like the 6 player party format. As for raids, I have a varying opinion.
I miss the EQ days of 72 man raids and how epic they felt. However, with large raid sizes comes a host of logistical hurdles that could be considered a pain-point for many, such as simply obtaining 72 players. This will depend heavily on how high server populations are. Large raids also tend to have more margin for individual error and are more inclusive. Smaller raid sizes, around 25 people or so, tend to feel less epic, but are easier to organize. At the same time, smaller raids put more weight on the shoulders fo each individual raider to maintain peak performance, with mistakes being very costly to the raid force. This can push people toward a more elitist and exclusive approach to end-game content.
I can see good and bad points to both approaches. On the whole, we have a wealth of games available with 10-25 man raiding options, but very few games with larger scale raids like EQ. My vote would go to large scale raids (50+ man), but I would be content with a 25 man format as well.
I'm with Dekaden on this one. If we have the population to do it, I would much prefer large format raiding... or more pointedly no artificial restrictions on raiding. If I want to take 25 great.. if I want to take 75 that will make it much easier but fewer people will get rewarded other than being able to say "I Killed XXXX"
I would like to see no limit in group sizes.
But that means when you are fighting you need to develop mobs that are a challenge for a soloer and mobs that are a challenge for 4-16 people. I think it would be fun to have mobs that are just too hard for 6 people but being able to being in 3 or 4 more and you can handle them. However, thats a hard development challenge. I'd be perfectly content for a group size of 6 people. It worked well in EQ2 and was fun.
PADPAD2 said:So that's it? Just stuff for 6-8 man groups, and then "raids" with whatever assumed numbers that implies? (30-40 people average or something?)
Based on the history of the people in charge I would expect 6 man groups as well as smaller and larger scale raids. So maybe 6 man, 20 man, 40 man content.
Dekaden said:I like the 6 player party format. As for raids, I have a varying opinion.
I miss the EQ days of 72 man raids and how epic they felt. However, with large raid sizes comes a host of logistical hurdles that could be considered a pain-point for many, such as simply obtaining 72 players. This will depend heavily on how high server populations are. Large raids also tend to have more margin for individual error and are more inclusive. Smaller raid sizes, around 25 people or so, tend to feel less epic, but are easier to organize. At the same time, smaller raids put more weight on the shoulders fo each individual raider to maintain peak performance, with mistakes being very costly to the raid force. This can push people toward a more elitist and exclusive approach to end-game content.
I can see good and bad points to both approaches. On the whole, we have a wealth of games available with 10-25 man raiding options, but very few games with larger scale raids like EQ. My vote would go to large scale raids (50+ man), but I would be content with a 25 man format as well.
I think you nailed it pretty much. I see quite a few saying that large raid size has the negative effect of making people feel insignificant or something. That wasn't my experience at all. Even in EQ with 50-70 man raids I never felt more connected and involved with an MMO raid force than I did in EQ (and even WoW 40 man raids). There was just something special about that many people working together as a team and pulling through some of the harder content in the game. Few games have given me that level of satisfaction.
That being said there was a serious downside to this. The management and logistics involved with maintaining a raid force of that size was an enormous amount of (stressful) work and created various negative pressures to create rules and such that were not always positive. Raid attendance, DKP, loot distribution/priorities become unweidly with that many people. With that in mind and the nature of modern MMO players (and the aging nature of old school MMO players) I would not want to see raids that big in Pantheon. It's just too time consuming to maintain. I think 18-25 is probably a good sweet spot for having meaningful sized raids that aren't too unweildy or hard to manage.
I think WoW was a good case study in how raid size affected guilds. When they moved from 40 man to 25 I think it was a good move. Raids were still large enough but much more manageable. When they added the 10 man raids I think it was a bad move. Our guild got splintered into a bunch of smaller raid forces and it did not have an overall positive effect on the guild. The fact that they had 10 man and 25 man raids simultaneously was also a problem. 2 10 man raid forces still didn't fill a 25 man raid force and 3 meant you had too many. This was a logistical nightmare trying to support both raid types simultaneously. The class requirements for 10 man vs. 25 man also didn't mesh well. The classes needed for 2-3 10 man raids didn't really fit neatly into a 25 man raid. There was also the problem that one 10 man raid force would end up doing well while the others struggled creating some resentment/bad feelings about who gets in which raid. Not what you want for guild cohesion.
I hope Pantheon doesn't go down this path of multiple raid sizes unless the raids are dynamic in nature. As for group size I think 6 is good. Any less than that and you don't have class flexibility. More than 6 and it becomes a pain to fill groups in a reasonable amount of time.